Sweetness
by writingcacoethes
Summary: Sano dislikes sweet things...so he says.


Disclaimer: I don't anything you might recognize, and I don't have enough money to pay you even if you tried to sue me. I wouldn't suggest trying it unless you enjoy exercises in futility.

Sano walks back toward his dorm, _their_ dorm room, with slow, heavy steps that match the fog in his brain. Mizuki is still there, he knows it, knows it—_feels_ it, the same way he feels the icy cold of the can of peach juice against his heated palm.

It's not for him, of course. Sano Izumi hates sweet things. But he carries it anyway, the juice he knows is far too inadequate an apology for his bright-eyed roommate who wanted nothing more than to help and has no idea of the effect she has on him. It's the only thing he has to give her—Sano Izumi's aversion to sweetness seems to apply equally to both words and food.

It's impossible to explain to himself just exactly what it is about Mizuki that sends him crazy, he thinks to himself as he runs his palm along the rough stucco wall, pace slowing even further in an attempt to prolong the inevitable. His roommate's presence, and worse, the weight of the secret that they are both carrying, had been pushing him further and further toward the edge of drastic action for weeks now. Quite possibly, it may have been heading in this direction since they first met.

And today, he snapped.

He had yelled at her, denying her a place in both his life and his heart. And as he watched that usually smiling face grow pale and the eyes grow wide, he felt that peculiar ache inside his chest that had taken him until that very moment to realize was love. And in the realization of both the futility and idiocy of that love, he had only yelled more.

So now here he is, arriving outside the door of his room, _their_ room, with inadequate words, an inadequate gift, and what he thinks may very well be an inadequate heart. Sano Izumi hates sweet things, but he tries hard to find the sweetness in himself to give to the most important person in his life.

"He made you cry."

Sano hears the words with a sharp shock, knowing this is _not_ his roommate, _not_ the girl he had left behind, but rather the voice of the one boy to whom Sano would always lose in a contest of expressing emotion.

"I would never make you cry," the voice continues, and Sano knows with a sick twisted feeling that the talented soccer player is right—Nakatsu Shuuichi would never make _anyone _cry—and that his own stoic expression right now is just one more example of how he could never offer the _sweetness_ that Nakatsu wore like an aura that could be seen even without Kayashima's psychic powers.

It was at this time, with an undercurrent of the soft mumble of comforting words and the sniffle of Mizuki's tears—he refused to listen, telling himself it was only to help him think, and not because the sound of Mizuki's unhappiness tore at his heart, or because every shift of bodies led him to be certain they were embracing—that Sano was forced to remind himself that not everyone disliked sweet things. That Mizuki, in fact, adored sweets and candy like nothing else on this earth (thus the reason for the rapidly warming can of peach juice he was squeezing much too tightly in a suddenly white-knuckled grip).

And it was at this time, forehead leaning against the cool wooden door, heartbeat thudding hollowly in his ears, down his chest, until he could feel even in his legs pulsing in rhythm, that Sano made a decision.

He turns and walks away.

He offers the now-unnecessary can of peach juice to the first person he saw, offering a vending machine mistake as his excuse.

He cringes as he hears the person's voice floating up behind him, "That's right, Sano hates sweet things."

The next morning, Sano sees Mizuki and Nakatsu laughing over breakfast in the cafeteria. As he skims over her reddened eyes, and focuses on her smiling mouth, he reminds himself of the words from the night before.

Because maybe if Sano tells himself enough, he can learn to dislike Mizuki's smile, too—the sweetest thing he's ever seen.


End file.
